It was also evident that in recuperative power, there could be no comparison between the two sections; the conditions which had formerly operated adversely to the progress of the interior now conducing to its development.
First, and chief of its advantages, were to be reckoned climatic conditions permitting of white agricultural labor.
Secondly, the greatly lessened disparity in numbers between whites and blacks in its population.
Thirdly, a hardier and more homely mode of life, which enabled its people to adapt themselves with greater readiness to the new order of things.
Fourthly, the varied character of its industries; and
Lastly, a staple (cotton) naturally suggestive of manufacturing enterprise.
When these combined advantages are taken into account, and the section possessing them compared with the coast, whose sole source of revenue lay in the fertile, but miasma-laden rice fields, for the cultivation of which negro labor was an absolute necessity, it is seen at once how completely “old things had passed away!”
The mere reversal of former conditions, however, was certainly not calculated in itself to heal the sectional breach. But, fortunately, ameliorating agencies were at work—the gradual spread of education—increasing intercourse between the sections, the result of improved facilities of travel, and also of business enterprises in which both were interested. And far above and beyond all else in mollifying power, the four years of fellowship in suffering for a common cause, which linked the erstwhile jarring sections together in a closer brotherhood than would probably have been brought about by generations of peace and prosperity.
The frightful race-problems with which South Carolina found herself confronted at the close of the Civil War, and the grim burlesque of government which followed, known as the “Reconstruction” period, during which chaos and crime ran riot in the land, served to weld still more firmly the new made bond. And when in 1876, after years of almost superhuman patience under provocation, the people of South Carolina decided that endurance had ceased to be a virtue, and rose in their righteous indignation; and in the face of overwhelming odds, by one supreme effort the State righted herself, “low-country” and “up-country” rejoiced together in true fraternal spirit.
Since that time the bond has continued to strengthen. And instead of being as of old, “a house divided against itself,” the State of South Carolina is gradually becoming one harmonious and homogeneous whole.